Despite its tremendous success, the Chinese Economy is still characterized and controlled by a recurring process of 5 year planning. This comprehensive National planning program occurs at all levels of the Chinese government, educational system and state owned companies. This paper reports on a study that was made in preparation for the 13 th 5 year Plan for the Smart City component of the upcoming city of Tianjin. The objective of this study was to identify problems in i nformatization, automation and centralization of command and control, so that these could be solved as part of the 5 year plan. The study followed a three-stage mixed -method approach. First, questionnaires were used to assess t he sate of development of the smart city fe atures in the different depar tments of the city government. Second, the study organized thematic joint development groups consisting of expert representatives from different city’s departments and units. Third, results of questionnaires and thematic joint development discussions were analyzed in departmental focus groups to clarify and specify the problems and assess proposed solutions and viability of those solutions. This paper analyses the findings of this three-stage process and offers a classification of the identified problems, an integrative conceptual representation of these and a discussion of the importance of this identification in the overall planning process. The results and discussion are of particular importance in China for the next round of 5 year planning that will take place in 2020. However the meaning of the findings of this applied research process are transferable to any smart city planning process all over the world as the majority of the issues discussed are generic.